TallGuyCalif's Computer Gaming and Entertainment Site

Tag: PC

  • Star Trek Online Battle

    In this Star Trek Online battle, my ship, the USS Ampere, is protecting a damaged ship from waves of alien attacks. Since my ship is a science vessel, it doesn’t have very powerful weapons, but does have good shields, so my hull is well protected. You can see that the battle is generally turning and worrying about firing arcs. The enemies are not very tough in this battle, so they don’t do too much damage. Against the last battleship, I call in a “photonic fleet” of helpers that take the heat off me as we weaken the enemy’s shields and I pump quantum torpedoes into it. This is an HD video, so be sure to view it full screen and at 1080p resolution if your machine can handle it.

  • Star Trek Online Sector Map Navigation

    This video shows sector map navigation in Star Trek Online. My ship, the USS Ampere, is in the galactic map sort of near DS9 and Bajor. I turn around an enter the Rolor Nebula, an area with randomly generated missions that you can repeat over and over again (and must if you want to rise in the Diplomatic Corps ranks). Once in the nebula, I head over to an anomaly, which in this case is something to scan. Then you see the scanning mini-game where I match the waveform of the scan and get bonus materials. Note: This is an HD video (1920×1080) if you go full-screen and choose 1080p in the video size options.

  • Gaming Video Capture

    There are lots of people, including me, that post gaming videos on YouTube. The trick is to figure out how to capture the video. On a PC, we can use utilities like FRAPS to capture frames and make a movie from it. This works, but burdens the system a bit while you are playing the game. Another option is a capture device to capture HDMI or component video (we’re talking HD here, none of that low-res SVideo or composite junk). An internal card, like the Blackmagic Intensity Pro, can capture either HDMI or component and has a pass-through so you can play the game with no delay (capture devices always add a delay because they are busy compressing your video), but the HDMI capture is not useful for PS3 (or Blu-Ray players) because of HDCP encryption.

    I chose an external USB device, the Hauppauge HD PVR 1212, which has component input and pass-through, as well as optical audio in and out, SVideo and composite inputs, and front and back analog audio inputs and pass-through). It captures straight to H.264 compressed video with 3 different wrappers, one that plays well on XBox 360, one for PS3, and one for general video editing. The software can apparently make DVDs that will play back HD in Blu-Ray players, though I haven’t tried that. The unit itself is a plastic rectangle a little bigger and taller than a Mac Mini and it has funky blue “bling” lights that glow when recording (can be turned off). The software is minimal, but seems quite functional, and that’s what matters. The great thing is that the hardware does the compression into H.264, so you can use a laptop or other weak PC to control the unit. I’m using an Atom&Ion-based “Nettop” computer to record the files from the HD PVR and it works great.

    I also discovered that my NVIDIA GTX 280 card in my PC has component video output, so the HD PVR can record 1080i from my PC. I am uploading videos as I write this showing the results. They aren’t great, because of the analog capture and interlacing, but they seem pretty good and it didn’t slow my PC like FRAPS would have. I do think the captures from the PS3 look better than from the PC, perhaps because of better cabling or perhaps because the lettering and such on the PS3 are made for TV viewing so are bigger and smoother, while PC text is small and sharp on a digital monitor, but not as great on analog component video.

  • New Star Trek Online Content

    The folks that run Star Trek Online are doing their best to keep us from becoming bored and to draw gamers in. Now they have added some new weekly episodes, plus some daily repeatable missions that involve fighting the Breen. On the ground, the Breen use freeze grenades and things to slow or freeze you, while in space, they are tough cookies. They are also introducing each episode with a Star Trek-looking title as you warp into the system. Pretty nice! The first episode is up now, and I’d guess the next will pop up in a few days, so I’m looking forward to it!

    I also has a fun mission against the Borg last night with lots of fun ground combat. Somehow, fighting the Borg in ground combat seems more fun than fighting Romulans or Klingons. Perhaps it’s that they keep beaming in more to fight!

  • Dragon Age:Origins

    One of my favorite games of the last year was Dragon Age:Origins. It is a tremendous RPG with good graphics and a great story (to be expected from Bioware games). It is almost an old-school RPG, like Neverwinter Nights, but simplified and not using D&D rules. In the game, you can choose your origin, whether you are a mage, dwarf noble, dwarf commoner, wood elf, city elf, or human noble. Each of those six backgrounds has a deeply compelling origin story that is universally sad and filled with unjust death (and more) that sets the stage for the game. The origin story and some of your subsequent actions make various interactions later in the game very different (i.e., you really want to kill Arl Howe if you’re a human noble).

    You control a party of yourself and 3 others that are controlled by the computer (or you can choose to control one of them and let the computer control your character). Each character has a simple set of customizable rules that you can set to make them a healer or ranged or a magic damage dealer, for example. Battles take place in pausable real-time, so you can pause, issue commands to your party, then resume very intuitively. The battles are immersive and great fun.

    I played each of the origin stories at least once, and played the game through three times as different characters (it’s much faster the 2nd and 3rd times, because you don’t have to watch all the cutscenes). I made different choices each time, some of which I regretted later, but that’s part of the fun. I think mages are the most powerful, particularly when they get to be Arcane Warriors. The scout/assassin class is also really good once you level up a bit, with regular insta-kills and the ability to avoid damage through dexterity. Warriors are just boring…

    Highly recommended for great fun!

  • Star Trek Online

    A game that I’ve been playing on and off for a few months is Star Trek Online. Because it is Star Trek, I signed on early, during the beta period, and even bought a lifetime subscription. Even back then, the space combat was quite good, though it is only partially 3-axis. Remember that these are big starships, not little fighters, so they turn slowly and it is really a game of “facing” (which weapons can be brought to bear on the target). The ships can’t roll over or flip upside down, which is different from many space games, but consistent with the Star Trek universe, where ships are always facing “up” unless they are drifting.

    Because it is an MMO, some missions are played with other players, so together, you can split targets or gang up on one. Each player only has a single target at a time, so half the weapons may be idle because of facings (certain Bridge Officer powers allow multi-target firing). All in all, the space battles are fun and look good.

    In the early days, ground combat was horrible. Since then, it has vastly improved, but is still much weaker than the starship battles. In ground combat, you and four of your computer-controlled Bridge Officers (BOs) go up against groups of enemies spread throughout a mission area. You fight Klingons, Jem Hadar, Cardassians, Romulans, Borg, and more, and each has their own characteristics that affect how much damage they do and how much damage your weapons do. The ground battles can get quite frantic and are sometimes fun, but are usually a chore. But they are somewhat Star Trek-ish, so it’s okay.

    There are also a few large group battles both on ground and in space, and, as with other missions, the space ones are mostly fun, while the ground ones are a pain. The exception is a mission to defeat a Crystalline Entity (remember that from TNG?) – this is a terrible space mission that I have never succeeded in. Just stupidly hard, particularly when other players make mistakes that heal the damn thing.

    Overall, I like Star Trek Online and think it is good fun. If you have any interest in Star Trek, check it out. The price on Steam and elsewhere has dropped to only $20, I think, then there’s a monthly fee after the first month.

    You can look my characters up in the game. My captain page is here: http://www.startrekonline.com/character_profiles/user_characters/TallGuyCalif

  • New start in Oblivion

    A couple days ago, I did a new start in Oblivion. But wait, TallGuyCalif, you were playing Star Ocean! Why switch?

    With the scarcity of save points in Star Ocean, sometimes I need to play for a couple hours before coming to the next one (I’m in the Purgatorium dungeon where there are few save points). Since I’ve been busy working, I don’t have hours to spare. Therefore, Star Ocean is out and Oblivion is in. With Oblivion, I can play for 20 or 30 minutes and save wherever I want so I can do crazy things like eat dinner or go to bed.

    Besides, Oblivion is good fun.

  • The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion

    Even though I already owned the DVD version of Oblivion and Shivering Isles and most of the add-on content, I couldn’t pass up last week’s Steam sale where I bought the complete Oblivion, which seems to include at least one add-on that I didn’t have, for less than $8.

    I fired up Oblivion and was reminded of just how great a game it is, and not just because it has Captain Picard as the Emperor and Wonder Woman as various other voices. It really is a good-looking, easy-to-play game that is intriguing, deep, and fun. It has swords, sorcery, magic, crafting, and a huge, beautiful world!

    There are many wonderful things about Oblivion, but I’ll give you a couple of my pet peeves from my earlier play through (these also exist similarly in Oblivion with Guns, err Fallout 3). Even though I was Champion of Cyrodiil and had closed the gates to Oblivion and kicked butt and taken names, I still got attacked along the road by petty thugs and bandits. C’mon, couldn’t they see I was wearing armor and carrying weapons so far above theirs that they wouldn’t stand a chance? The only game I’ve played that got this sort of thing right was Freelancer, in which you could hear the other pilots chatter about you and decide not to engage because you would kick their butts. Surely other game designers could implement something similar. Also, why do wolves and bears always attack? They’re no match against a high-level champion and in real life, the attack probability is much lower.

    Anyway, I love having Oblivion available from Steam, because now I don’t have to keep track of the DVDs from before. I’m not saying I will play through Oblivion again soon, but I’m not saying I won’t…